


A Favoured Sword

by icarus_chained



Category: Thunderbolt Fantasy 東離劍遊紀 (TV)
Genre: Annoyance, Future Fic, Honesty, Hopeful Ending, Kissing, Lies, M/M, Manipulation, Partnership, Truth, Uneasy Allies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: Set some time post-S1. There's no more troublesome creature Sho Fukan could have drawn to himself than Rin Setsua, but there are only so many times a man may be rained on before he simply gets used to the weather.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I watched [this show](http://www.crunchyroll.com/thunderbolt-fantasy) a few days ago and I've wanted something with these two since then. Heh. Apologies if the spelling of the names is off, I was watching in Japanese with subtitles from the Chinese, so I got a bit confused.

He was sore, exhausted, he had liberal quantities of other people's blood unpleasantly splattered all over him, and in light of all that Sho Fukan was not at all surprised to find Rin Setsua sitting on a tree on the rise above the ambush site, smoking idly and looking decidedly pleased with himself. The thief smirked faintly at him, gestured languidly with his pipe as if to invite Sho to sit beside him, and it took all of Sho's considerable willpower not to kill the man where he sat.

He was not usually possessed of such urges, you understand, but Rin Setsua was a trial to test _anyone's_ patience in that regard.

"You look tired, my friend," Rin noted, while Sho settled himself with ill grace on a tree root. "I hope you haven't had trouble on the road? It's meant to be so peaceful this time of year."

Sho closed his eyes and counted very carefully to ten. And then to twenty, for good measure. After that, he acknowledged the need to take a deep breath and open his eyes again, because otherwise he might be sitting counting all day. Which, while meditative, probably wouldn't help him much in the long run. 

Not that anything ever seemed to, when it came to this man. There were evil gods a thousand times less troublesome, and a hundred times easier to escape.

"If I asked you into whose teeth you were casting me this time, would you give me a straight answer?" he asked wearily. He'd be angry, but there were only so many times a man could get rained on before he simply got used to the weather. Or should he say blown about? Rin was named for the wind, after all, though Sho would say more blustering and insufferable than enigmatic these days. The thief's whims might be capricious, but they were a good deal less opaque now than they'd used to be.

Though Rin liked to pretend they weren't, even still. He liked the illusion of mystery. Hence the tiny smile, now, and the reflexive wave of a pipe to cause distraction. 

"I wouldn't say I had _cast_ you," he demurred, his eyes bright and laughing beneath the red beads of his ornaments. "Nothing so active as all that. I merely thought, since you were passing this way anyway, that you might want to meet a ... deserving individual or two. You have a very direct and upright manner, Sir Sho. I merely thought there were some gentlemen in the vicinity who might be edified by it."

Sho snorted loudly. Oh, he didn't doubt there were. There was one sitting across from him, for a start, and the unfriendly welcome on the road below did speak to several other likely candidates as well. Though Rin's presence alone would speak to that. Whatever else Sho might say about the man, the Enigmatic Gale chose his targets well. He had a definite eye for the prideful, the arrogant, and the cruel. Hah! Like called to like, you might say, and even the thief himself would not deny it. He knew himself for what he was, at least, and it did stand as a rare point in his favour.

All of which was beside the point, of course. The _point_ was, whoever in the area might be deserving of his presence, _he_ was not deserving of theirs. He'd already had to forcibly dissuade a dozen very angry young men today, and he was not at all happy about it. Rin Setsua on top of that, and the _reason_ for that, wasn't making him any happier. One peaceful journey in this cursed land. _One._ Was that really so much to ask?

Sho took one look at Rin Setsua's expression, sly and anticipatory, and leaned back against the tree with a drawn-out sigh. Oh, of course it was. Of course. You'd think he'd have realised that by now. Had he drawn the malicious attentions of a fox spirit he could not have been more soundly cursed as he had by attracting the interest of this ... this _creature_ , this thief sitting smoking by his side, watching him with languid, challenging eyes. 

He laughed abruptly, that kind of weary amusement at the vagaries of fate, and tipped his head back to watch the afternoon sunshine playing in the leaves above his head. He felt Rin grow still beside him, sensed the curious tilt of a head and the happy intrigue of a deceitful man. His smile spread wide and rueful across his face.

"Rin Setsua's favourite sword," he murmured, shaking his head at himself. Rin twitched in startlement, and Sho honestly laughed for the both of them. "That's what they should call me, don't you think? More accurate than 'Edgeless Blade', anyway. What else have I been since I arrived in this cursed country of yours?"

Rin blinked. Sho watched him, watched the flicker of something dark and secret and startled across his face, the wariness that followed after it. He felt something stir inside himself in response, a glint of a hunter's instinct, and a curiosity as well. 

Of all things to startle the man. Of all things to pull a glimmer of truth to the fore.

"... 'Favourite' is a strong word," the thief said at last, voice light and airy but for the suddenly watchful thing in his crimson eyes. "Come now, Sir Sho. You know I use everyone alike. I'd be careful, flattering yourself unduly."

Sho barked a laugh. "Flattery?" he asked. "I'd call it a curse, myself. Why so coy all of a sudden? Are you saying you return to others as often as you do me? You must be run off your feet, shadowing so many men." 

Rin glanced away, bringing his forgotten pipe back to his lips and focusing on drawing in a mouthful. A distraction, on most people. On this man, potentially also a weapon. A readiness as surely announced as the click of a sword in a sheath. Sho sobered slightly. He frowned, and studied the man more carefully.

"... I am, aren't I," he said slowly, sounding out the thought. "I spoke truly. I am your favourite. Why? Because I have a scroll full of mystic swords? You ply me as often in unrelated matters. And not my skill, either. There are dozens of skillful people in these lands, and you yourself not least of them. I've suspected that for a long time. You cornered Betsutengai yourself. You don't need me. You don't need anyone, except that it pleases you to manipulate them. So why me. What is it about me that keeps you coming back?"

He wasn't even sure why he asked. To be free of the man, he would have said not so long ago. To know what drew him, so that he would then know how to turn him away. Yet the thought didn't please Sho this moment. It felt rough, distasteful, and he realised in that moment how truly used to the storm that was Rin Setsua he had become.

The thief exhaled slowly, white smoke coiling thickly from his mouth like dragon's breath. Sho held his own breath for a second, wondering if a haze of confusion would fall over him while Rin slipped silently away, but nothing came. No bewilderment fogged his senses. The smoke dispersed, and Rin Setsua looked up at him with thoughtful crimson eyes.

"A sword," he said, musing and careful. "My favourite sword, you say. I suppose it does come back to that, doesn't it. It always comes back to the sword in the end. Even for those who have left it behind."

That thing inside Sho stirred to full wakefulness at that. That instinct, the hunter, the warrior. _Those who have left the sword behind._ He thought of the wood and silver paint at his side. He thought of the pipe in Rin's hand, a sly weapon in lieu of more obvious ones. He thought of long suspicions, and a powerful warlord cornered and driven to despair by just a thief. His eyes flicked from the pipe to Rin's face, and the Enigmatic Gale smiled at him.

"Perhaps," the thief said slowly. "Perhaps, if a man knows his own hands may not be trusted with a weapon, if he knows how wicked he is and how easily he might turn to darker paths ... perhaps that man might choose a weapon with honour of its own. Perhaps he might choose a sword ... of a better nature than his own."

Sho stared at him. He ... It sounded like truth. It _felt_ like truth. And of all things that had ever come from Rin Setsua's mouth, the truth was the one he could find no answer to.

He had no chance to, regardless. Rin moved, flicked his pipe out and to the side and climbed elegantly to his feet, that heavy, honest thing, laid so bare a moment ago, disappearing back a sly mask and a placid, empty smile. 

" _Perhaps_ ," said the Enigmatic Gale. "Perhaps he might. Or perhaps he simply finds skilled men ease to rile, and honourable ones easy to set on course. You must tell me what you think, Sir Sho. Though, I do remind you, you have an appointment first, with some gentlemen on that hill in need of edification." He smiled like a needle. "I realise that I made that appointment in your name, but I do hope you'll honour it regardless?"

He sketched a bow, more with a wave of his pipe than a bend of his neck, and turned in a sweep of blue and white to leave. There wasn't a single thought in Sho's head, nothing save a distant blankness, amusement at the vagaries of fate, but he found himself on his feet. He found his hand caught and tangled in the cloth at the man's elbow, and a poised, wary thief turned to watch him with thoughtful eyes.

"... I'll honour it later," he said, a strange, rough thing in his voice, a hunter's instinct in his chest. He could feel a match in Rin, a readiness, a wariness, a man who had never truly put down his sword, and it wasn't an urge to kill him that Sho felt now. The opposite, in truth, and he saw no need to count until this one went away.

The thief's lips were cool, tasting sharp and bitter from the herbs and the smoke, and they didn't part immediately. They held closed, stiff and wary as the man's back, while he palpably searched for the lie or the threat in the gesture. Sho let him, content for him to work it through in his own time. He was in no hurry. He leaned back a little, offered a grin and a languid challenge of his own, before drifting in again to taste that cool bitterness once more. This time, though with hardly a surrender of wariness, Rin let him in. This time, Rin kissed him back.

It wasn't the stuff of legends. It was stiff and curious and uncomfortable, wary still on both their parts, and Rin's damned hair ornament kept catching Sho's hair or his forehead, those red beads dangling in his eyes. It was not a masterful kiss at all.

It was dizzying, though, and for once not because of what Rin kept in his pipe.

"... You are a curse, you know that?" Sho growled when he withdrew, rough and ragged with amusement. "There are demon gods out there a thousand times less troublesome than you. You are a _curse_."

Rin blinked at him, bemused, the corner of his mouth curling. "You have a masterful grasp of flattery, Sho Fukan. And an appointment to keep." He paused, that dark, secret thing flickering behind his eyes, and his smile went heavy and thoughtful. "It wouldn't do for Rin Setsua's favourite sword to be late, don't you think?"

Something tangled in Sho's chest, something edged and laughing and sweet, and he reached up to touch the man's cheek. "The Edgeless Blade, I think," he said quietly. "For them, at least. The other part we'll keep between ourselves."

And oh, there, the look in Rin Setsua's eyes was _dazzling_.


End file.
